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Do you follow rec.woodworking? I do. I can be loads of fun, but one of the most amusing parts is the frequent recurrence of the thread asking for recommendations on the best eight inch jointer. I’m something of a tool minimalist – of course if my wife were rifling through my tool chest, she would laugh out loud at that statement, but compared to some people I don’t buy that many tools. Power tools especially. I started out trying to get my hands on everything made but quickly realized that the maintenance and replacement costs of the tools I was using could easily be recouped by passing on the tools I never used.
There will always be people who will want the biggest, newest and best of everything, and God bless them - they make the economy go round. Maybe you are such a person. Maybe not. Regardless of your position on buying tools, you will probably reach a point where you will either prefer to find a way to work around having the big iron or you will need to, probably for want of funds. So here is a little trick that can save you some cash and may get you an extra tool at the same time.
As I said before, many bemoan the size of their six inch tool – I mean jointer. Shame on you! (Sorry I couldn’t resist.) Indeed there are many times I’ve wanted an eight or twelve inch jointer myself. For a recent sign carving project I used a piece of lumber that was nearly eight inches wide and no way would I rip it in two just so I could flatten it on my six inch jointer. So here’s how I handle the situation.
Oh, I promised you might still be able to satisfy your craving to buy tools. To flatten a wide board you will require the assistance of a jack plane. If you already have one, please accept my apologies. You won’t be buying a tool today but just think how much you’ll save buy passing on that eight inch jointer. You could take your significant other out for an evening of ballet – several times. If you don’t have a jack plane already, here’s your chance.
A jack plane, like my Stanley Bailey pattern No. 5, is the pick-up truck of hand planes. It is long enough to joint shorter boards but short enough that you can flatten panels, or my piece of sign wood, without creating a wavy surface or taking forever. It’s an all purpose plane. If you only have one plane, this probably should be it. They can be purchased new, but you’ll probably pay a lot less if you buy one at a flea market or garage sale. But what do you do with it?
Once you have your jack plane, you simply choose one face of the board and start at it. I like to set the plane for a medium to light cut and start on the diagonal. I start at one end and take diagonal cuts all the way to the other end. Then I rotate the plane 90° to the opposite diagonal and work my way back. I may do this once or twice. Cutting diagonally (usually done with a scrub plane but we are trying to save money here) helps to flatten the board out from side to side. Every once in a while I use a straight edge to check the board diagonally, side to side and lengthwise. I take note of high spots and gaps so I know which areas need a little more attention, and those I should leave well enough alone. Mark the high ground with chalk. When it’s gone, you can stop planing that area until you get the straight edge out again.
When that is finished, I start taking full passes parallel to the long axis of the board. I like to start along the edge furthest from me and work across the face of the board with overlapping strokes. When I get to the edge nearest my body, I start back to the other edge. I do this between three and six times until the board looks something like this. Again, it is wise to check for flatness with a straight edge form time to time.
You don’t need to take off too much, unless the board is really warped. If it does have a high degree of twist, cup, or other warp, then you have selected the wrong board. If it’s cupped you may have to rip it along the middle of the cup and use the jointer to flatten it. Twisted wood may have to be shortened into smaller pieces. The same can be said of bowed or crooked wood. If you run into those problems, then chances are that you aren’t storing the lumber correctly. Check to see if it’s getting wet or has something pressing on it, causing it to bend. Make sure that it is stacked properly. If you picked it up from the lumber yard like that, then you selected poorly. Properly stored lumber should remain reasonably flat, so when you rough cut a piece for something like my sign project board, you should be left with something you can work with and not have to remove abundant quantities of wood.
You simply need to make the one face more flat than it was and have enough fresh, flat wood showing that you can run the lumber through the thickness knowing that the face riding on the planer table is as flat as possible.
When you go to the planer, make sure that you place the hand planed surface on the table with the rough side facing up toward the cutter head. Set your depth to take a light pass and send the lumber through. On the next pass, set it little deeper and repeat. Expect to find that, for the first few passes, only a few of the highest spots actually get any attention. Plane until the rough side starts to look like the hand planed side, then flip the board over and run the hand planed side through. Now you can turn it over every pass until you have a nice flat board. I try to flip it end for end a few times too just to make sure everything stays flat.
That’s all. I try not to do this unless I have to because I prefer the precision offered by my Powermatic jointer. It is fun to get the old jack plane out and make shavings. If you haven’t tried it yet, I encourage you to do so. Hand tools can be very addictive. Have fun, be safe, and happy woodworking to you.
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